i973»7L63         Hertz,  Emanuel 

GHUiW  V/ashington  and  Lincoln;  the  two 

master  builders  of  the  Union* 


LINCOLN  ROOM 


UNIVERSITY  OF  ILLINOIS 
LIBRARY 


Washington  and  Lincoln 

The  two  Master  Builders 

of  the  Union 


By 
EMANUEL  HERTZ. 


Delivered  at  Fort  Washington  Synagogue,  February  17,  1928 


Digitized  by  the  Internet  Archive 

in  2012  with  funding  from 

University  of  Illinois  Urbana-Champaign 


http://archive.org/details/washingtonlincolOOhert 


GEORGE  WASHINGTON 


ABRAHAM  LINCOLN 


or? 


WASHINGTON  AND  LINCOLN 

By  EMANUEL  HERTZ 

CONTRAST  between  the  Colonial  protagonist  in  bring- 
ing about  our  independence  in  the  struggle  with  Great 
Britain,  which  was  even  then  preparing  to  grasp  the  hegemony 
among  the  world  powers — and  the  preserver  of  the  Republic 
seventy  years  later,  has  been  and  is  today  and  must  ever  be  a 
favorite  topic  of  discussion.  Not  so  much  to  demonstrate  that 
either  the  founder  or  the  saviour  of  the  nation  was  greater,  not 
so  much  to  prove  that  either  one  or  the  other  deserves  more 
credit,  more  veneration  for  the  accomplishment  of  a  task  which 
in  either  case  has  never  been  equalled;  but  rather  to  under- 
stand that  both  were  needed,  both  were  God-sent  and  Divinely 
ordained — one  to  create  and  make  possible  government  by  the 
people,  the  other  to  conserve  and  preserve  and  rescue  from 
sedition  and  rebellion  and  civil  war  what  his  predecessor  had 
brought  about  and  accomplished.  Here  were  three  million 
English-speaking  people,  as  much  part  of  England  as  was 
Wales  or  Scotland,  under  circumstances  which  tended  to  make 
for  a  great  universal  English  commonwealth  with  a  people  who 
read  the  same  Bible,  who  pored  over  the  same  Milton  and 
Chaucer,  over  the  Elizabethan  poets  and  dramatists,  over  the 
Caroline  poets  and  historians,  who  followed  the  development 
and  evolution  of  English  law  and  Parliamentary  government 
even  as  did  the  residents  of  London  and  Liverpool  and  Edin- 
burgh. The  problem  of  keeping  these  colonies  in  leash  with- 
out permitting  them  to  participate  in  the  government,  in  the 
evolution,  in  the  growth  of  the  coming  Britsih  Empire — was  a 
problem  which  all  recognized  excepting  the  narrow-minded 
ruler  and  his  immediate  cronies  in  the  Cabinet.  The  elder, 
Chatham  and  Burke — the  two  greatest  minds  of  their  day  or 


787434 


for  that  matter  of  any  other  day  in  the  history  of  Parliamentary 
government,  saw  the  light  of  a  new  dawn — pleaded  for  fair 
play  for  the  new  Empire  of  the  West,  but  their  eloquent  pleas 
fell  upon  deaf  ears — and  America  was  forever  lost  to  England. 
It  could  not  be  otherwise — for  Cromwell's  Puritans  and 
Rupert's  Roundheads  and  Cavaliers  were  fighting  for  a  prin- 
ciple in  their  new  home — against  England's  hirelings  picked  up 
from  the  four  corners  of  the  earth,  who  knew  not  what  they 
were  fighting  against. 

And  then  the  first  citizen  of  his  day — trained  in  warfare, 
trained  in  public  affairs,  a  member  of  a  remarkable  body  of 
men — and  no  better  group  ever  essayed  to  create  a  nation — by 
his  tact  and  patience  and  enormous  influence,  organized  and 
brought  forth  a  nation,  patterned  after  the  Republics  of  an- 
tiquity— and  became  its  first  President.  The  growing  pains  of 
the  new  giant,  the  problems  and  insuperable  difficulties  it  en- 
countered in  a  world  dedicated  to  the  principle  of  the  divine 
right  of  kings — made  the  beginning  so  difficult  that  a  great 
many  thought  that  the  young  Republic  would  never  survive — 
the  hostility  of  England,  the  jealousy  of  France,  and  the  hos- 
tile indifference  of  the  rest  of  the  world — all  with  one  object 
in  view — to  crush  and  destroy  our  Republic. 

But  the  team  work  of  the  Colonial  Congress,  of  the  Consti- 
tution makers,  of  John  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Hamilton, 
Franklin,  Patrick  Henry,  Witherspoon,  James  Wilson  and 
Washington  brought  forth  a  Constitution  which  was  modelled 
on  the  experiences  of  the  past  and  the  lessons  of  the  present. 
The  Constitution  was  adopted,  thanks  to  the  genius  and  per- 
suasive powers  of  Hamilton  in  New  York  and  Madison  in  Vir- 
ginia. The  Constitution,  as  promptly  strengthened  by  the 
twelve  amendments,  stood  adamant  until  the  real  test  came  in 
1861.  John  Marshall  made  it  a  living,  throbbing,  mighty  in- 
strument for  good. 

There  is  honor  enough  in  the  fact  that  George  Washington 
was  present  at  the  birth  of  a  nation — that  he   fought  off  its 

6 


enemies ;  that  he  set  the  governmental  machinery  in  motion, 
and  that  for  eight  years  he  was  at  the  head  of  affairs — and 
when  he  reads  his  Farewell  Address,  he  has  established  the 
groundwork  of  these  stupendously  powerful  United  States  of 
today.  There  may  be,  there  are,  monuments  to  Washingtofi 
everywhere,  of  every  kind,  but  his  greatest  monument  is  the 
Nation  he  created  after  wresting  it  from  England's  narrow- 
minded  rulers  of  the  Eighteenth  Century. 

And  now  the  formative  years  of  our  country.  With  England 
definitely  out,  with  England  acknowledging  that  she  was 
definitely  beaten  in  1812 — we  turn  our  attention  home  to  see 
and  set  in  order  what  we  had  won — what  we  conquered  and 
what,  through  Jefferson,  we  acquired  in  addition.  For  that 
many-sided  genius  added  an  empire  overnight  to  our  domain, 
for  the  price  of  a  square  block  in  an  unimportant  section  of 
New  York  City  today.  But  then,  we  inherited  the  problems 
and  the  causes  for  conflict  which  drove  us  out  of  England  and 
into  the  wilderness.  Here  we  had  the  Puritan  in  the  North, 
the  Hollander  in  New  York,  the  Dutchman  in  Pennsylvania, 
the  Cavalier  in  Virginia,  the  Catholic  in  Maryland,  the  Dis- 
senter in  Massachusetts,  Roger  Williams  (who  had  been  driven 
out  of  Massachusetts)  had  settled  in  Rhode  Island,  the  Quaker 
in  Pennsylvania,  the  cotton  grower  and  slaveholder  in  the 
South,  the  farmer  and  factory  hand  in  the  North,  and  the 
pioneer  from  the  East  gradually  trecking  to  and  opening  up 
the  great  Empire  in  the  West — and  as  if  these  were  not  suffi- 
cient we  greeted  the  Spaniard  in  the  Floridas,  thrown  into  our 
lap  by  Andrew  Jackson's  romantic  military  exploits,  and  the 
Frenchman  in  Louisiana  with  his  Code  Napoleon  and  up  the 
Mississippi  whither  Father  Marquette  and  his  resolute  band 
had  taken  them.  And  then  from  the  very  heart  of  France 
came  the  best  blood  of  the  Huguenots  such  as  had  not  been 
massacred  with  Coligny  on  Bartholomew's  Night — and  the 
Jewish  people,  too,  came  from  the  Netherlands,  from  the  South 
Americas — and  after  1848  from  Germany  and  the  process  of 


making  the  American  was  on.  We  can  almost  see  that  when  the 
Almighty  came  to  make  the  American  who  was  to  have  sway 
in  this  land — planted  upon  and  springing  from  the  Bible,  he 
took  from  Palestine  its  religion  and  philosophy  and  the  Bible — 
God's  greatest  boon  to  mankind;  from  Greece  the  arts  and 
beauty ;  law  from  Rome ;  from  Holland  the  spirit  of  liberty  and 
tolerance;  from  France  and  England  and  Germany  the 
sciences,  the  orderly  processes  of  modern  life;  from  Spain 
color  and  chivalry  and  the  spirit  of  discovery;  and  the  noblest 
fruits  of  the  Rennaissance — art  in  the  highest  forms — from 
Italy,  and  so  merged  and  mingled  and  re-enforced  all  these  in 
the  cauldron  of  creation  that  the  finished  product  was  none 
other  than  the  American! 

The  first  great  problem  with  which  we  were  then  confronted 
was  the  question  whether  the  immortal  Declaration,  the  joint 
intellectual  product  of  the  three  million  colonists  was  a  truth 
or  a  scrap  of  paper.  For  forty  years  the  great  joint  debate 
lasted — and  upon  that  great  stage  came  all  the  leaders  and 
thinkers  and  statesmen  of  the  day  and  of  the  epoch — beginning 
with  that  remarkable  trio  of  statesmen — Webster  and  Clay  and 
Calhoun  and  ending  with  Stephens  and  Seward  and  Douglas. 
All  were  heard,  all  gave  the  best  in  their  life  for  their  ideas, 
and  the  whole  country  was  the  interested  audience,  and  ac- 
tively participated  in  answering  the  question  whether  this 
country  would  be  free — and  endure. 

Many  a  Presidential  election  was  fought  and  won  on  one 
phase  or  another  of  this  great  controversy.  Personal  ambitions 
were  submerged  in  the  tremendous  clash  of  national  ambitions, 
whole  sections  of  the  country  were  transformed  as  to  their 
political  opinions.  Families  were  broken  up,  institutions  van- 
ished, political  parties  disappeared,  a  whole  section  of  the 
country  had  to  be  made  over  before  this  elemental  question  was 
properly  answered  and  the  problem  depending  on  the  question 
adequately  and  definitely  solved.  An  entire  school  of  states- 
men who  thought  that  they  were  heaven-sent  to  adjust   this 

8 


national  clash  between  North  and  South,  passed  from  the 
stage — completely  disappointed  and  broken-hearted — because 
they  did  not  understand  the  gravity  of  the  situation.  Another 
class  of  statesmen  who  saw  and  understood  the  gravity  of  the 
problem,  had  no  adequate  solution  and  followed  the  will-o-the- 
wisps  of  compromise  and  delay.  It  also  came  to  pass  that  the 
policy  of  pacification  and  of  postponement  of  the  evil  day  came 
to  an  end.  This  situation  could  not  be  postponed,  could  not  be 
sidestepped,  could  not  be  delayed,  could  not  be  adjusted  except 
in  one  way.  The  whole  country,  while  sick  at  heart  of  the 
controversy,  while  dreading  the  consequences,  was  nevertheless 
aware  of  the  fact  that  there  must  be  some  solution  of  these  old 
and  ever-recurring  problems — but  no  one  had  shown  that  he 
knew  the  solution — no  one,  either,  directly  or  by  insinuation, 
could  be  induced  to  pronounce  a  formula  which  would  please 
all  the  parties  concerned — a  policy  of  drifting  under  Buchanan's 
inept  and  meaningless  admiration  then  ensued  for  a  short 
while — then  the  whole  country  was  startled  by  the  appearance 
of  a  man  in  the  Middle  West — who  spoke  so  clearly  that  all 
could  understand : 

*  *  *  "  *A  house  divided  against  itself  cannot  stand.' 
I  believe  that  this  government  cannot  endure  permanently 
•half  slave  and  half  free.  It  will  become  all  one  thing  or 
all  the  other.  Either  the  opponents  of  slavery  will  arrest 
the  further  spread  of  it,  and  place  it  where  the  public  mind 
shall  rest  in  the  belief  that  it  is  in  the  course  of  ultimate 
extinction,  or  its  advocates  will  push  it  forward  till  it 
shall  become  alike  lawful  in  all  the  States,  old  as  well  as 
new.  North  as  well  as  South." 

Who  was  this  man  who  had  thus  spoken?  Where  did  he  come 
from?  Where  had  he  mastered  the  principles  involved  in  the 
conflict  of  forty  years,  to  be  thus  able  to  pronounce  a  formula 
which  no  one  could  honestly  controvert  and  which  no  one 
could  gainsay?  This  man,  who  said:  "Let  us  try  to  do  our 
duty  as  we  understand  it.     Let  us  have  faith  in  the  fact  that 


right  makes  might."  Then  people  began  to  hear  from  his 
friends,  from  his  neighbors,  from  his  clients,  from  his  legisla- 
tive comrades,  from  the  Judges  before  whom  he  had  practiced, 
from  the  lowly  he  had  befriended,  that  the  man  who  was  driv- 
ing Douglas  from  political  life,  was  the  man  who  had  studied 
and  digested  and  comprehended  this  cancer  at  the  heart  of  the 
Union  better  than  any  other  human  being  living  and  better  than 
the  framers  of  the  Constitution  themselves.  The  people  now 
began  to  follow  him  all  during  the  Joint  Debate  with  Douglas 
— to  Cooper  Union  when  he  spoke  to  the  whole  country — and 
clung  to  him  and  to  his  words  until  they  brought  him  to  Wash- 
ington, the  first  Commoner  in  the  seat  of  the  mighty — of  the 
statesman,  the  scholar,  the  gentleman,  the  aristocrat  and  the 
patrician,  of  the  scion  of  the  blue-blooded  hierarchy  of  the 
South.  A  farm  hand  in  the  White  House: — ^a  Mississippi  boat- 
man in  the  White  House,  a  country  lawyer  pleading  petty 
causes  in  the  White  House — a  poor  man  with  practically  no 
family  history,  no  family  connections,  in  the  seat  of  Washing- 
ton— the  wealthiest  man  of  his  day,  in  the  seat  of  Madison  and 
John  Quincy  Adams,  the  most  cultured  men  of  their  day  and 
generation.  There  must  be  some  mistake,  some  accident,  this 
man  with  the  old  duster,  with  the  shawl  about  his  giant  shoul- 
ders, this  cadaverous-looking  individual  with  the  cavernous 
eyes,  ill-kempt,  ill-clad,  this  crude  frontiersman,  he  certainly 
cannot  be  the  leader  in  this  epoch-making  struggle — which 
might  spell  the  doom  of  the  Republic.  We  need  a  statesman 
of  the  Seward  type,  of  the  Chase  type,  of  the  Sumner  type. 
We  need  a  trained  diplomat,  a  seasoned  executive.  No,  there 
was  no  mistake.  *'God  moves  in  a  mysterious  way  his  wonders 
to  perform."  From  the  depths  he  had  chosen  his  instrument,  his 
messenger,  to  go  and  tell  the  modern  Pharaoh  of  Slavery  that 
his  day  of  power  was  over ;  and  to  the  people  he  said : 

"Fondly  do  we  hope — fervently  do  we  pray — that  this 
mighty  scourge  of  war  may  speedily  pass  away.  Yet,  if 
God  wills  that  it  continue  until  all  the  wealth  piled  by  the 

10 


bondsman's  two  hundred  and  fifty  years  of  unrequited  toil 
shall  be  sunk,  and  until  every  drop  of  blood  drawn  with 
the  lash  shall  be  paid  by  another  drawn  with  the  sword,  as 
was  said  three  thousand  years  ago,  so  still  it  must  be  said : 
The  judgments  of  the  Lord  are  true  and  righteous  alto- 
gether.' " 

And  so,  unwillingly,  hesitatingly,  pleading  for  peace,  appeal- 
ing to  his  misguided  countrymen  in  vain.  Father  Abraham 
called  for  men,  for  munitions,  for  money  to  fight  and  preserve 
what  the  fathers  had  founded.  And  we  see  him  surmount  all 
the  difficulties,  we  see  him  undo  all  the  harm,  all  that  was 
caused  by  the  sins  of  omission  and  of  commission,  by  a  supine 
if  not  a  cowardly  administration  which  preceded  him  and  which 
almost  wrecked  the  Union — we  see  him  organize  an  army  and 
navy  anew — the  real  soldiers  were  with  the  South — we  saw 
him  inaugurate  a  blockade  which  strangled  Southern  commerce, 
a  diplomatic  service  which  gathered  information  wherewith 
Lincoln  could  counteract  every  plot  and  scheme  which  tended 
to  bring  recognition  to  the  Confederacy  from  abroad.  He  held 
his  enemies  at  home  in  check — ^he  helped  his  splendid  war  gov- 
ernors in  keeping  the  great  Northern  states  not  only  loyal  but 
ready  to  make  every  sacrifice  required  to  save  the  Union.  He 
gave  his  attention  to  press  and  pulpit  in  order  to  have  the 
common  people  properly  informed  and  exhorted  to  stand  solidly 
behind  their  annointed  leader  in  the  holy  war  of  the  Union. 
With  the  precision  of  destiny  came  blow  upon  blow,  the  Eman- 
cipation Proclamation,  failure  to  attain  recognition  abroad, 
Gettysburg,  Vicksburg,  the  War  of  attrition  under  Grant,  Sher- 
man, Sheridan  and  Thomas,  and  a  host  of  brilliant  Northern 
soldiers — all  trained  during  the  agonizing  first  years  of  the 
War  when  the  South  seemed  to  be  winning.  Finally  Appo- 
matox — when  all  that  made  up  the  Richmond  government  col- 
lapsed— and  even  Robert  E.  Lee  saw  and  pronounced  the  doom 
of  the  Confederacy,  and  urged  his  misguided  and  disillusioned 
countrymen  to  return  to  the  Union. 

11 


Enough  has  been  stated  to  place  the  two  great  Americans  side 
by  side,  not  for  comparison  but  in  order  to  demonstrate  that 
the  same  Providence  which  guided  the  destinies  of  these 
colonies  for  eight  long  years — until  England  yielded  to  the  in- 
evitable and  made  peace  and  acknowledged  the  sovereignty  of 
the  United  States  which  soon  thereafter  became  a  Nation,  the 
same  Providence  came  to  our  assistance  when  the  even  more  im- 
portant question  came  up  for  final  settlement  whether  this 
country  could  be  half  slave  and  half  free — whether  this  coun- 
try could  remain  a  Republic  while  it  was  contaminated  by  the 
Moloch  of  slavery — whether  this  country  was  to  remain  a 
loosely  jointed  Confederation  of  quarreling  states,  whether  it 
was  to  become  split  up  like  the  South  American  Republics  or 
the  Balkan  States,  or  be  an  indestructible  Union  of  indestructi- 
ble States — was  it  to  be  a  Nation  or  a  mob? 

Through  the  divine  interference  and  through  the  life  and 
efforts  of  Lincoln,  these  questions  were  answered  in  a  way 
that  no  future  recurrence  of  these  ailments  are  conceivable. 
The  Constitution  was  so  amended  that  at  no  time  will  one  being 
garner  what  the  other  achieves  by  the  sweat  of  his  brow.  All 
are  alike  before  the  law — which  countenances  no  other  govern- 
ment than  that  of  the  people — who  make  and  unmake  govern- 
ment by  the  people,  and  all  are  concerned  that  the  best  measure 
of  self-government  shall  be  safeguarded  for  all  the  people  of 
the  land  founded  by  Washington  and  recemented  and  saved  by 
Lincoln. 

"Two  stars  alone  of  primal  magnitude, 

Turn  beacons  in  our  firmanent  of  fame. 
Shine  for  all  men  with  benison  the  same ; 

On  day's  loud  labor  by  the  night  renewed, 

On  templed  silences  where  none  intrude. 

On  leaders  followed  by  the  streets's  acclaim, 
The  solitary  student  by  his  flame, 

12 


The  watcher  in  the  battle's  interhide. 

All  ways  and  works  of  men  they  shine  upon; 
And  now  and  then  beneath  their  golden  light 

A  sudden  meteor  reddens  and  is  gone ; 

And  now  and  then  a  star  grows  strangely  bright, 
Drawing  all  eyes,  then  dwindles  on  the  night ; 

And  the  eternal  sentinels  shine  on." 


13 


I^JK/"' 


UNIVERSITY  OF  1LUN018-URBANA 


if 

S"oTl  2  031819672 


